D'oh! Colin Powell denies WMD in 2001

[poskonig]

I found this over at the State Department. Take a look:

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/933.htm
We will always try to consult with our friends in the region so that they are not surprised and do everything we can to explain the purpose of our responses. We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq, and these are policies that we are going to keep in place, but we are always willing to review them to make sure that they are being carried out in a way that does not affect the Iraqi people but does affect the Iraqi regime's ambitions and the ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and we had a good conversation on this issue.

[foreigncorrespondent]

1. What's wrong with that?

This is actually more contradicting to the admin. If they are saying that back in '01, then why did we go to war with Iraq?

[Jackpine Radical]

2. I assume that was Poskonig's point--

that Powell was already on record saying no WMD before he went to the UN & laid out his bogus claims (like the good house slave he is).

edit: Typo

[Jackpine Radical]

3. This thread killed

courtesy Jackpine Radical

[DrBB]

4. Nice to have the transcript & link. There's also video of this

...online. It's in the documentary called "Breaking the Silence" by John Pilger. Great stuff--you can view it here:

http://100777.com/node/view/567

on edit: Condi says pretty much the same thing as Colin, b.t.w.--her clip is in that video too.